Piotr Anderszawski – April 28, 2014
English Suite No. 1 in A major, BWV 806
Johann Sebastian Bach
1685-1750
Bach’s three sets of six suites for keyboard, entitled Partitas, French Suites, and English
Suites have caused scholars and music lovers to comb fruitlessly through each set for some
distinctive national characteristics. Bach, however, did not give titles to the so-called
“French” and “English” suites, and the original manuscripts are lost. The English Suites, or
Suites pour les Anglois, were published after Bach’s death and were presumably given their
title in French by the publisher.
Since the days of Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), the basic style for Baroque suites,
including Bach’s instrumental suites, was essentially French. It consisted of a set of four
standard dances, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Gigue, traditional rhythmic and
metrical patterns of court dances, although by Bach’s time many of them had lost any
association with actual dancing. They were often preceded by an introductory prelude
(Dances in the court of Louis XIV, for example, who was a first-rate dancer himself, began
with a pompous introduction to accompany the entry of the king.) Optional additions of other
dance movements were common. While Bach never traveled outside of Germany, he avidly
assimilated the musical styles of the great European composers of his time, such as Vivaldi
and François Couperin, although he always added his own distinct musical signature.
Paradoxically, his so-called French suites are the most idiosyncratic and least “French” in
structure, since none have an introductory movement and often have several additional
dances.
All six of the English Suites contain a prelude and the four basic dances in their standard
order plus at least one additional dance movement before the final gigue. The A major suite
is particularly interesting in form because it has two courantes, the second of which has two
“doubles,” or elaborately ornamented variations of the original dance. After the Sarabande
Bach also wrote two Bourrées before concluding with the obligatory gigue in fast triple
meter.
Overture in the French Style, BWV 831
Johann Sebastian Bach
1685-1750
In 1735 Johann Sebastian Bach published his Clavier-Übung, Part II, consisting of two
works for the two-manual harpsichord. One was A Concerto according to the Italian taste,
popularly known as the “Italian Concerto,” BWV 971, which became one of his most
popular keyboard works, the other An Overture according to the French manner, commonly
known as the “French Overture,” BWV 831.
The Overture is actually a Baroque suite, but with a more diverse set of movements than in
Bach’s other suites (the three sets of harpsichord suites). The titles for these works, however,
was casually employed; “overture,” partita,” “suite” were all used interchangeably, and more
often added by publishers rather than by the composers themselves.
The dances themselves adapted for the Baroque suite were, despite their French names,
standard fare in all the European courts. In this isolated Suite (BWV 831), the introduction –
also called Ouverture – is an ABA form in which the slow dotted rhythms of the processional
flank the rapid contrapuntal Allegro. There follow a Courante, Gavottes I & II, Passepied I
& II, Sarabande, Bourée I & II and a Gigue. In the final movement with the peculiar title of
“Echo,” the music imitates the natural echo by repeating whole phrases or melodic
fragments. The echo device was particularly effective in pieces scored for keyboards with
two manuals where the manuals were stopped differently, usually with the top manual
employing a lighter and thinner registration than the lower one.
On an Overgrown Path, Book II
Leos Janácek
1854-1928
In contrast to his great operas and chamber music compositions, which were meant to speak
to a large audience, Janácek’s solo piano pieces are mostly intimate affairs, something like a
musical diary. He himself was a good pianist and in his youth had intended to make a career
as a performer. His touch on the keyboard was extremely refined and he occasionally
complained that his piano music was played too roughly.
Janácek composed the 10 pieces that make up On an Overgrown Path, Book I, between 1901
and 1910, five of them originally for the harmonium. They recall Janácek’s childhood in
Hukvaldy in Moravia. These are intimate works in a simple style, some of which served as
an emotional outlet for the composer at a time when he was recovering from the death in
1903 of his only surviving child, the 21-year-old Olga. The titles of the pieces were added by
the composer just before publication in 1911, with the expectation that titles would improve
their sale.
The five pieces of Book II never received titles, and the last three were left only as sketches.
The set was only published in 1942. While the first two continue the somber mood of the
first set, the last three cheer up significantly. It is not known why Janácek never finished and
published the set.
Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat major, Op. 110
Ludwig van Beethoven
1770-1827
Beethoven’s last five piano sonatas fall into what is generally agreed to be his “late” style.
Together with the Ninth Symphony, the Missa Solemnis and the last five string quartets, they
represent the composer’s most musically complex and emotionally intense creations. Written
after Beethoven had become profoundly deaf and no longer able to continue his career as a
virtuoso pianist, the last three sonatas in particular are also the most inward looking, the
composer’s dialogue with his instrument that he could only hear in his mind’s ear.
Beethoven composed the last three piano sonatas during and immediately following an
enormously stressful period in his personal life, one that seemed to sap his creative energy
for several years. Deprived of the joys of family life as husband and father, he invested all his
love and concern in his nephew Karl, the son of his brother Carl Caspar. Upon Carl Caspar’s
death in 1815, Beethoven was awarded joint custody of the boy with his mother, a woman
whom Beethoven loathed and considered to be of loose morals, referring to her as the
“Queen of the Night.” A protracted lawsuit for full custody ensued and dragged on for four
and a half years. Although Beethoven eventually won full custody of Karl, he over-protected
the boy and bad-mouthed his mother to the point where Karl attempted suicide in 1826.
Beethoven concentrated his final efforts – almost as if he knew that they would be so – on his
string quartets. The final quartets, in a certain sense, take over an important creative task the
composer had set for himself: taking the most complex musical form, the fugue, and taking it
to a level of mastery and musical transcendence beyond that of the universally acknowledged
master, Johann Sebastian Bach. Two immense fugues conclude the Piano Sonatas, Op. 106
(“Hammerklavier”) and Op. 110. But Beethoven continued the project in the string quartets
Op. 131 (first movement), Op. 133 (Grosse Fuge)
The Sonata Op. 110 was completed during December of 1821 and was followed almost
immediately by Op. 111, so that the two works are often thought of as a pair. The thematic
material of the first movement of Op. 110 is treated in a quite original way. It opens with a
gentle chordal theme that contains within it an abbreviated version of what will become the
fugue subject of the final movement. The theme changes character and continues into a
cantabile section interrupted by a long digression of arpeggios that create tension as the
listener waits for the theme to return and resolve. It is characteristic of Beethoven during this
final period to make his themes asymmetrical, sometimes interrupting them or allowing them
to flow imperceptibly into new musical ideas.
The Scherzo is based on mere snatches from two Austrian folk melodies. In this short
movement, Beethoven builds up tension through the use of syncopation and abrupt changes
in tempo and dynamics. The flowery arpeggiated trio contrasts sharply with the pounding
scherzo theme.
The final movement is one of Beethoven’s most unusual creations, with a recitative and
heart-wrenching aria (called in the score “klagende Lied,” or complaining song) in full
operatic style, resolving into a fugue. The fugue subject is loosely based on the main melody
of the first movement, only upside down. The whole structure is then repeated in slightly
varied form while the second statement of the fugue introduces the subject in inversion and
continues with further development and drama.
This fugue and the other great fugues from Beethoven’s last period – the final movement of
the “Hammerklavier” Sonata Op. 106 and the Grosse Fuge Op. 133, which was the original
finale to the String Quartet Op. 130 – are monuments of contrapuntal mastery as well as
flights of spiritual fancy. “To write a fugue is no great art,” Beethoven once said, “ …But the
imagination also insists on its rights, and nowadays the traditional form must be penetrated
by another, genuinely poetical element.”
Program notes by:
Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn
Wordpros@mindspring.com
www.wordprosmusic.com